Persons who use embroidery floss must separate the individual strands or groups of strands from the amorphous elongated bundle in which they are marketed. A bundle is called a skein and normally includes six strands about eight yards long. Often, the skein will be folded and cut by the user to shorten the eight yards long strands to a more convenient length, for example, two feet long (thereby making a bundle two feet long having seventy-two strands). Invariably, the strands are not perfectly aligned but rather are twisted and when an attempt is made to separate a single strand from the bundle, tangles occur.
This is a hand operation and the problem being solved is one of hand manipulation by individuals doing the embroidering. It is not related to large manufacturing processes which may have different means for separating strands of thread. Manufacturing operations may have some discretion in what they buy and the condition of it when it arrives. Individuals who purchase embroidery floss in retail stores do not have that option. It comes as a large collection of fibers in an elongated bundle and with the individual strands somewhat twisted with respect to the other strands in the bundle.
Patents to Jewett, U.S. Pat. No. 1,987,777 and Kodama, U.S. Pat. No. 3,836,086, teach the collection of a limited number of strands from a larger array, but the collection of a plurality of strands is not a problem being solved by this invention.
A patent to Nelson, U.S. Pat. No. 2,377,173, discloses a commercial process for separating elongated threads and delivering them to feed rollers for whatever use they may have.
A patent to Perry, U.S. Pat. No. 3,734,374, discloses guide mechanisms for aligning threads which have already been separated.
None of these patents appear to recognize the problem of the individual desiring to quickly and easily separate individual strands or perhaps a plurality of strands as a unit from the bundle purchased from the local fabric shop. It remains a hand operation, one not susceptible of any known solution other than the tedious finger manipulation currently used.